In the manufacture of various information processing and telephone switching equipments, supports such as plastic strips or circuit boards with arrays of terminal pins are extensively used to provide either mountings for various electrical and semiconductor devices or terminal posts for mounting wires that interconnect electrical devices which may be mounted on the same strip or board or may be remotely mounted on separate strips or boards. In assembling the terminal pins in the supports, the pins may be mounted individually or in arrays but in either case extreme care must be exercised to avoid bending of the pins or damage to the pin supports. The pins must orthogonally project from the supports in parallel relation because subsequent use with automatic component assembly, wire wrapping and test apparatuses requires the precise positionment of the pins. These terminal pins are usually constructed of a pliable material and are dimensioned so as to be somewhat flexible and may be easily bent if stressed beyond the elastic limits of the pin materials.
The assembly of the flexible pins into holes formed in a circuit module such as printed circuit boards or connector strips presents the obvious problem of preventing bending of the pins during the insertion operation. The usual procedure is to feed the pins individually or in an arrayed mass into a chuck device with the trailing end or ends of the pins projecting from the chuck and then moving the chuck towards a circuit board with preformed holes so that the projecting end or ends of the terminals are seated within the holes. For example, there is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,265,013 issued May 5, 1981, to V. B. Brown et al. an apparatus for inserting pins one at a time into a circuit board. During each cycle of operation of the apparatus, a slide moves a lower pin from a magazine stack into a chuck so that the trailing extremity of the pin projects from the chuck. The chuck is thereafter moved and pivoted to align the projecting end of the pin with a hole in the printed circuit board whereafter the chuck is moved to insert the pin in the aligned hole.
In other pin inserting apparatus, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,765,075 issued Oct. 16, 1973, to V. D. Olney, Jr. et al., a laterally aligned cluster of pins are advanced from a plurality of bins into a head with the trailing portions of the pins being left to extend from the head. Subsequent to the loading of the pins, the head is pivoted and moved to insert the laterally aligned pins into a row of holes formed in a circuit board. The circuit board is supported on an X-Y drive system which cyclically functions in conjunction with the operation of the insertion head to position successive rows of circuit board holes to receive rows of pins.
Another type of pin insertion apparatus contemplates the insertion of a cluster of more than one row of pins into a like array of holes formed in a printed circuit board. As an example, there is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,102,043 issued July 25, 1978, to R. W. Andrade et al., a pin insertion apparatus which includes an apertured template which is loaded with pins and then positioned to load the pins into apertures formed in a spring supported platen of a press. A circuit board is placed with holes formed therein to overly the apertures in the platen. A further platen is provided with positioner pins that are adapted to be moved through the apertures in the spring supported platen to position the pins into the holes in the circuit board which in turn is held from movement by a further platen having bores formed therein to receive the pins positioned through the board. There are still needs for pin insertion apparatus that is of simple, rugged construction which confine the pins against distortion during insertion into a circuit module, a terminal strip or circuit board, particularly where the pins are force fitted into holes which do not extend completely through the module.